Howard Dean: A Life's Choices (4 Letters)
Published: December 30, 2003
ARTICLE TOOLS
RELATED
Challenging Bush: From Patrician Roots, Dean Set Path of Prickly Independence (December 28, 2003)
TIMES NEWS TRACKER
Topics
Alerts
Dean, Howard
Presidential Elections (US)
Democratic Party
o the Editor:
Re "From Patrician Roots, Dean Set Path of Prickly Independence" ("Challenging Bush" series, front page, Dec. 28):
The final paragraphs of this excellent review of Howard Dean's career ask "whether a man whose chief political experience has been running a governor's office has the skills to run the federal government."
Can this question seriously be posed when four of our last five presidents, including the incumbent, have precisely that experience?
It will be ironic indeed if Dr. Dean becomes the Democratic candidate and President Bush suggests (as his aides already hint) that gubernatorial office is insufficient experience for the presidency.
Democratic candidates currently urging that Capitol Hill preparation is superior might reflect on the electoral success of candidates trying to make the leap straight from Congress to the White House, which hasn't been done since John F. Kennedy did it more than 40 years ago.
RICHARD J. WELLS
Yorktown Heights, N.Y.
Dec. 28, 2003
To the Editor:
President Bush and Howard Dean may indeed come from strikingly similar backgrounds (front page, Dec. 28). But the most revealing comparison between the two men is not of their privileged upbringing but of what they did with it.
George W. Bush used his family's influence and wealth to win personal favors and to build a business enterprise from which he profited. He continues to this day to advance his interests by propagating policies favoring the very well-to-do.
Howard Dean, by contrast, resisted family pressures to pursue a career on Wall Street and chose to become a doctor. His policies (including the extension of health insurance to nearly all children in Vermont) show that he is driven to help those less fortunate gain the same opportunities he had as a child.
For American voters, these contrasts should reveal not just policy differences but fundamental differences of character.
MARIUS MELAND
New York, Dec. 28, 2003
To the Editor:
"From Patrician Roots, Dean Set Path of Prickly Independence" (front page, Dec. 28) was superbly enlightening except in one important area. When and why did Howard Dean decide to run for the presidency of the United States?
MARILYN MACKAY Wainscott, N.Y., Dec. 28, 2003
To the Editor:
Howard Dean is being widely criticized by members of both parties for his statement that we are no safer now than before Saddam Hussein's capture (news article, Dec. 28).
Let's see: before the capture, we were on a yellow alert. After the capture, we went to an orange alert.
Unless you think that the administration is playing games with us, you have to be intellectually colorblind not to recognize that we are less safe during an orange alert.
In this instance it would seem that in addition to Internet contributors, Dr. Dean also has logic on his side.
MURRAY J. FRIEDMAN
New York, Dec. 28, 2003 |
